Recently, I attended a men's support group meeting.
I went with an open mind. The meeting might be good for me. I might reestablish
connections, with men with whom I had either lost touch or see seldom, or make new
acquaintances. What I took away from the meeting was the topic for this month's Metaphoria.
I believe that skepticism, contrary to being a closed-mind state of being, is instead the
vehicle to openness and further personal growth and knowledge.

As is common in support meetings, the men were
relating recent experiences and feelings. One mentioned viewing a videotape of a recent,
controversial Fox TV program entitled Alien Autopsy. He spoke about how the program
made him "more convinced than ever." As I looked around the room, I saw many men
nodding in agreement. Compelled to ask questions, I felt trapped, as if to do so would
somehow be seen as either being unsupportive or having a closed mind.

In our attempts at being supportive to one another,
we need not check our brains at the door. The danger is a common one. I see it everyday in
my teaching. In order to become accepted, students agree with the dominant statement or
philosophy of the moment. In order to be accepted, they listen and do not respond to what
is being said. The give and take of learning, sharing and seeking are replaced by the
passivity of agreeing.

It is difficult for me to remain silent when what I
hear is far afield from my logical perception and rationality. A statement devoid of
common sense is subject to interrogation and further scrutiny. There is the natural
skeptic in me in that wishes to ask questions. Skepticism is not closing the mind. It is
quite the contrary. It is opening the mind to possible alternative paradigms or
explanations in a quest for the truth. The quest's journey takes one into unfamiliar
territory where new knowledge is presented. Imagine what the world would be like if few
skeptics challenged the established authority figures. Imagine, and I am afraid this is
happening more and more often, if intelligent people lacking critical reasoning skills
accept ideas and explanations without question as a consequence of their lack of
understanding of scientific thought and inquiry. They may then fall for the advertisements
that sell everything from male sexual potency pills to chi energy balancing devices (two
brass tubes and a wire) that sell for outrageous sums of money.

Investigative Paradigms

We live in a society where science promises much at
the same time that fewer and fewer people understand what science is. We not only do not
understand scientific solutions and principles, we have little knowledge of the scientific
process. We have difficulty comprehending the problem and the solution.

It is easy to see where the scientifically
uninitiated would want an easy answer. It is much more convenient to accept my idea as
solution and retrogressively develop the means to support it than to use the foreign and
difficult to understand scientific process of analysis to come to a conclusion. We often
place upon our explanations of events in the universe those solutions to which our
ideology and personal philosophy adheres.

The discussion is really about investigative
paradigms. The scientific method of inquiry is the best method we have to separate our
willingness to make our explanation the truth, from actively and impartially seeking
the truth. Skepticism is a positive off-shoot of that seeking.

The 17th-century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza
wrote:

I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not
to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.

This is also the statement that is the guiding
principle behind The Skeptics Society. The Internet homepage of The Skeptics
Society states:

The Skeptics Society is a member-supported
organization of scholars, scientists, historians, magicians, and the intellectually
curious, that sponsors a lecture series at Caltech and publishes the quarterly magazine Skeptic,
for the purpose of promoting science and critical thinking, and disseminating information
on pseudoscience, pseudohistory, the paranormal, magic, superstition, fringe claims and
groups, revolutionary science, protoscience, and the history of science and pseudoscience,
in articles, essays, reviews, and letters."

Science and
Pseudoscience

I searched the Internet and found to my amazement
and great relief that there are dozens of skeptic organizations and publications. Here is
a definition of skeptic that I found:

A skeptic is one who is willing to question any
claim to truth, asking for clarity in definition, consistency in logic, and adequacy of
evidence.

In my circle of friends and acquaintances, there are
very, very few with pure science (physics, biology, chemistry) backgrounds. Those that
come close have academic backgrounds in psychology (and in nursing). One can argue whether
psychology is a science. We can however, call it a soft-science. The soft sciences are not
as dedicated to empiricism. Empiricism is the practice of relying upon observation and
experiment. A tenet is arrived at empirically, that is, through experience. Similar
conclusions are arrived at through similar experience. Replication of results is the
cornerstone of experimental science. In contrast, the experience of the individual is the
cornerstone of pseudoscience, regardless of whether anyone else experiences the same
phenomenon or whether the experience is able to be duplicated.

While all science attempts to achieve results,
pseudo- science has much difficulty with maintaining one variable consistently in the
course of experimentation, if experimentation is used at all. The control variables may be
too numerous and double-blind experimentation either absent or inadequately understood.
Many followers, readers and students of the soft sciences are really followers of
pseudoscience.

The difference between a scientist and a
pseudoscientist is that the scientist easily or more easily accepts that his theory is
wrong when data says so. One characteristic of pseudoscience is that they won't leave a
theory even if it is falsified a thousand times. And that is also the situation in the
public. People want to be fooled.

The Ego's at it Again

If, as Gerald Jampolsky says, the ego is the writer
of the script, the cast of characters, the producer and the projectionist of what we
experience as real in the world, then pseudoscience is right at home with the ego.
Everything that we express as a belief has at its core the reputation of the ego. To prove
our reality as incorrect is to prove our internal god, the ego, as wrong.

While science itself, like everything else, is a
projectionist system of thinking and inquiry, it is a system of thought that most closely
approaches objectivism. While scientists may argue about a theory, presenting opposite and
contradictory evidence, the overall objective is to arrive at the truth, not as seen
through the lenses of the observer but, rather as it is. Pseudoscience on the other hand,
latches onto an explanation, and then, in reverse, goes about proving that it is so.

Without a doubt, science at its best falls short of
being the ideal system of inquiry and investigation. Yet, science and its methods have as
a goal the identification of the ideal, be it the ideal gas law, ideal cold (absolute
zero) or the search for ideal empiricism. It is the best we have.

No amount of alternative medicine, nor any amount of
good vibrations, holistic medicine or chanting, for example, was going to bring back our
son Dylan's rapidly faltering kidney. No amount of focusing energy or listening to a
"channel", no psychokinesis was going to replace that bad kidney with a healthy
one. We can grow new skin and blood and veins and many other organs, but not all are
regenerative. Not even the body's own poorly understood but often quite remarkable
self-healing has ever been shown to regenerate kidney nephrons, (or grossly reduced tooth
enamel, or brain cells...).

The Baby and the Bath Water

A lot of good science went a long way to saving
Dylan's life by harvesting my healthy kidney, transplanting it and bringing us back from
the operating room alive and ready to heal.

None of this however, prevented Dylan and I from
going into the operating room with a small pouch of personal items tied around our necks.
The pouches contained twigs and small rocks from Vermont, a note from JeanneE, etc. It did
not stop us from firmly stating that both Dylan and I wanted to listen to music that
JeanneE put together for us during the surgery. We did not wish to throw out the baby with
the bath water. While not succumbing to the lure of pseudoscience, we recognized that
entertaining projects of positive thinking created a mental state that might increase the
odds of a good surgical outcome.

Our skepticism for alternate paradigms need not
hinder our choosing a course of action based upon conjecture so long as we do not abrogate
our intelligence in the process.

Cynicism

I have been accused of being a cynic. I have been
told that I remain closed-minded to possibility. The argument against the skeptic claims
that the skeptic is cynical because he refuses to believe outside that which he
experiences, thus cutting himself off from a myriad of potential explanations.

George Bernard Shaw said, "The power of
accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." The
pseudoscientists reject or do not understand empiricism. Thus, skeptical rejection of
claims of paranormal phenomena are scorned as the results of cynical closed-mindednes.

After viewing the videotape, Alien Autopsy, I
mentioned to a few colleagues that I had done so and that I could not believe how many
intelligent people had fallen for this hoax. His response was, "Oh. You don't believe
in UFO's?" How did we get into such a sorry state of affairs.? Aside from our wanting
to believe in UFO's and, aside from our (new age) commitment to pseudoscience, we have
been hypnotized and duped by television. America has become dumber. We have substituted
our need for nurture and nurturing, our desire to be supported and supporting, for our
common sense and intelligence. We feel good rather than think right.

Consider the TV program called, "The
X-Files". This program is immensely popular, with a large following. There are
Usenet Newsgroups in cyberspace that discuss the events portrayed on the show. People in
these newsgroups discuss the characters in the program as if they are real and as if the
events actually happened. In a recent discussion of a program about the coriolis effect,
the program had the effect backwards! Viewers lack of knowledge of science and their
inability to distinguish between a documentary and a docudrama created a lively discussion
of the program The creator of the show, Chris Carter, on occasion, has had a good laugh as
he steps into the discussions and point blank states that he made the whole thing up.

I suggest that the cynics are those who believe that
human conduct is motivated wholly by self-interest. So, the pseud-oscientists, the
believers in the alien autopsy, the supporters of spoon bending have it all backward. It
is often they who are the cynics as they have invested in their theories such deep
self-motivation to prove themselves right, that they suspend logic and close their minds
to possibility. The universe is a far more awe-inspiring place, a vast reservoir of wonder
and superincredibility than to be dismissed by the ridiculous and narrow explanations of
the pseudoscientist.

It is much easier to design a new paradigm or
system of belief than to learn something new. It takes time, effort and study to
learn about science, to experience empiricism through painstaking detailed observation,
recording, reobersvation, duplication and replication. It takes no time to accept a belief
without question just because we wish it to be so. Besides, it is much more fun and
entertaining to consider alien abduction as real than to read the investigative reports of
scientists, especially if one does not understand what they are talking about.

Rather than take the road less traveled, we choose
the road of easiest travel. If we don't understand something, we give up. We decide that
we are either not smart enough or, that the thing which we do not understand has no merit
for us. We forgo learning something new or difficult. In our unwillingness to
understand, the untenable takes hold and establishes credence in our dillusionary
thinking. Talk about cynicism!

Why is it hard for people to learn something new?
One explanation, as Steve Allen puts it, is that America is getting dumber. Another
explanation is that learning something new, studying science, may expose us as frauds to
ourselves. We would then have to toss what might be years wasted in our disbelief. The
idea is frightening. Losing faith in one's religion, judicial system, heroes, country,
beliefs, etc. is a crisis. Better not to think about it.

Correlation and Causation

My friends who believe in the incident at Rosswell
or in UFO's, or in the lost continent of Atlantis are confusing correlation with
causation. Correlation does not prove causation. The fact that hundreds or even thousands
of people claim to have been abducted by aliens in no way proves that they have been. Just
because one cannot prove that they were not abducted does not mean that they were.
The burden of proof is on the claim maker.

There is a difference between what appeared on
cigarette packs in the late sixties and what appears now. The correlation between
cigarette smoking and cancer (and other illness) prompted the government to place this
warning on cigarette packs: "Warning: cigarette smoking may be harmful to your
health." After determining through empirical evidence that there was a causal
relationship between the two the warning was altered to say: "Warning:
Cigarette smoking is harmful to your health."

Snake Oil

While we might miss an opportunity for acquiring
knowledge by consistently taking the causal approach, it does lessen the probability that
we will fall for and adhere to the claims of the world's crackpots and exploiters. One
need only examine recent history in the likes of Jim Jones (Jonestown Guyana), David
Koresch, etc.

The purveyors and believers of snake oil have always
offered the quick fix. It is as much a quick fix as it is a quick belief. A case in point
is the amazing increase in the number of people that say they have personally been
abducted by aliens.

While we can discuss the metaphor versus the reality
and even the definitions of reality itself, the more important issue is the phenomenon of
the increase itself. I suggest that people's cynicism in general and cynicism of science
in particular come from their unwillingness or inability to understand or grasp the basic
tenets of science. Much easier to believe that they have been examined by visitors from
another world than to investigate the correlation between the claims of an individual and
the individual's possible seizure activity.

From Iowa State University, I found a review of many
UFO books and documents: In UFO-Abductions: A Dangerous Game, Philip J.
Klass argues "that typical UFO abduction accounts arose from popular mythology,
circulated in accounts like The Interrupted Journey and stories about the Travis
Walton case. With the 'abduction explosion' of the 1980s -- through bestsellers by Budd
Hopkins and by Whitley Streiber -- a pre- The Skeptics Society Logo fabricated
'storyline' was already in place. To explain how disparate people provide similar accounts
and believe in them, Klass provides two mechanisms. Firstly, many abduction accounts were
'uncovered' through hypnosis, so it is likely that they arose through the hypnotist's
asking questions which 'led' the patient to create a UFO abduction memory. The second is
that several abductees (Streiber especially) exhibit symptoms of temporal lobe epilepsy
(TLE), which encourages confabulation of memory and fantasy." Accepting conjecture is
easy. Proving causation is difficult and time consuming.

Jack Rickard defines cynicism as an actual
manifestation of disappointment or unrequited love. If we are emotionally attached to
having events happen our way or rely on our limited but firmly believed and vested view of
the universe, our pain is our cynicism and, our cynicism is our pain.

In a recent discussion on the Internet in the Usenet
Newsgroup: alt.consciousness.mysticism, the following was posted:

We can hypothesize anything we like, but what
evidence can we present to support it? I don't LEAP to conclusions, I make judgments based
upon available evidence and will gladly revise them when evidence is presented that makes
another explanation more likely. Rather, it is a huge leap to conclude that some
invisible, undetectable entity lives inside us in some completely unexplainable way which
somehow animates the flesh to produce awareness. What evidence is there for this?

The whole point of conducting scientific experiments
is to reduce the number of variables you are testing to the one you think may be the most
important. You cannot practically test everything at once. It is called the scientific method
because it is methodical. If the hypothesis does not hold up under the experimental
trials, you reject it and find a new one, and test that.

Miracles

What of miracles? None of what I have been writing
about negates miracles. Recall if you will, that A Course in Miracles defines a
miracle to be a shift in perception that alleviates or eliminates pain. The miracle occurs
whenever we want it to through forgiveness and altering our perception of the world. Our
projections make our perceptions and as we change our projections so do we change our
perceptions. This does not however mean, that we can believe anything we want and that the
universe will then bow in agreement to that belief. Such ultimatism is another voice of
the ego.

While we hold cynicism at bay we can stay open
minded to possibility. Our skepticism leads us to inquiry which leads to learning which
leads to knowledge which leads to truth. Our intelligence, combined with our desire to
know the truth creates a supportive community of people traveling the journey of
life together where miracles are always ready to happen and the likelihood of debauchery
minimized.

Quotations

It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem
foolish.

Aeschylus

The only reason I would take up jogging is so I
could hear heavy breathing again.

Erma Bombeck

If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made.
Very few people die past that age.

George Burns

The fellow who thinks he knows it all is especially
annoying to those of us who do.

Harold Coffin

None of us can boast about the morality of our
ancestors. The records do not show that Adam and Eve were married.

Ed Howe

Research is an organized method for keeping you
reasonably dissatisfied with what you have.

Charles Kettering

Of course there's a lot of knowledge in
universities: the freshmen bring a little in; the seniors don't take much away, so
knowledge sort of accumulates....

Dr. A. Lawrence Lowell

Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground.

Theodore Roosevelt

A bore is someone who persists in holding his own
views after we have enlightened him with ours.

Anonymous

If the odds are a million to one against something
occuring, chances are 50-50 it will.